


something like rotting

by caitss



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alcoholism, Bullied Character, Drug Abuse, Emotionally Repressed, NDRV3 Spoilers, child neglection, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 14:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitss/pseuds/caitss
Summary: [MAJOR NDRV3 SPOILERS]With a flourish, Angie shows off a smile that doesn’t show the truth rottting underneath.





	something like rotting

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING!: major ndrv3 spoilers, so don’t say i didn’t warn you.
> 
> also this is a pregame fic
> 
> NO BETA BECAUSE I GO OUT LIKE A MAN
> 
> [lmao also took inspo from cosmicpoet’s heaven’s gate]

Angie was, in love with television. 

It was what her whole life was based around; she had learned to forget about her father coming home drunk and her mother always being high of her ass, just by absorbing the setting of a different world. When she was at school and not having her hair pulled and her speech made fun of, she would think of the show she watched last night, of the laughs she had watching a person who didn’t even exist. It wasn’t stupid like everybody said it was, it was perfectly fine, it was normal. It was better than having smoke blown into her face or having to clean up the empty capsules of pills on the ground. At least her dad cleaned up his messes; he seemed to grasp that she had a detachment from reality, and he didn’t judge. 

She could deal with the alcohol on his breath or the high ramblings of her mother, but she couldn’t handle people insulting her for things she couldn’t control. Everyone said she was an alien because she had darker skin; that summer, she attempted to bleach it to get the pain over with. She wussed out, because she had read the stories on the internet. Angie was also called a buzzkill for being the more realistic and solemn out of the group; so, during one of the millions of summers, she forced on a cheery smile and a optimistic attitude. People liked her more. It felt like a knife twisting in her gut, but she instead just swished her skirt and glued a sunshine smile on her lips. 

Her parents were never going to get better, no matter how much lip gloss she coats on her disgusting lips, it didn’t matter. Nothing changed when she can home smiling brightly and holding a report card with all A’s. It didn’t even leave a dent when Angie dressed out with bright colors, a stark contrast to her usual look. Nothing mattered, because her mother still injected god knows what into her arm, her father still got drunk off his ass. When they left her home alone, she’d always take his alcohol and pop it open, chugging the sickening drink like it was the best thing. Her father wouldn’t even notice; or care. 

One day, Angie is losing herself in the wonderful word of detectives and stardust, when there’s a commercial. She leans in close, her eyes wide with interest when she sees what the commercial is advertising. Danganronpa, huh? The name felt weird on her mouth, and it felt like a sickening sin crawling on her skin. She loved it, every second of it, and she was only watching a half assed advertisement. Auditions for Danganronpa 53, huh? The annoyingly bland voice of the girl talking about the show becomes the most important thing Angie’s ever heard; she makes sure she hears every word. 

After the commercial ends, she finds herself staring at the show she was just watching a couple minutes ago. Angie can’t even bring herself to be lost in the amazing work of a detective, so instead she flips through the channels, looking for some kind of rerun of Danganronpa. After a minute of desperate searching, she finds a channel that was having a marathon of reruns for the show. Her parents wouldn’t care; hell, she doesn’t care, so she watches all of them, and she can’t help but feel delighted at the blood splattering around corpses.

She is disgusting. 

She’s come to accept it at this point. The taunts of her peers and the smell of alcohol have burnt into her mind, have morphed her into the person she is today. It’s the whole world, that should keep it’s head low in shame. This place, this disgusting planet, as turned a little girl into a sunny façade and a fake grin. If people on it died, it would stop the world from taking even more of her childhood, of her innocence. So she didn’t care; she didn’t care if even she was ripped of this planet with a glorious execution or a knife to the throat, as long as the world could not take with it’s desperate hands, she was fine. No matter how she ended up; dead, or the only person left in this horrible wasteland, she wouldn’t care. 

Life wasn’t the best thing, anyway.

The next day, at school, her peers smile at her and compliment her sunshine clothes and happy grin, so she greets them back with a forced laugh and a small wave, thanking them with a tone of honey. She wanted to vomit, but she was at school, she didn’t want to be seen as weird, when life was suddenly right. Her fake friends chatter on to her, and suddenly she wonders if they have any knowledge of Danganronpa. The name had been tossed around many times, so she would assume that they did. However, Angie still forces a look of awe and cheeriness on her face as she asks them if they know what Danganronpa is. She makes sure her voice is dripping with sugar. 

They all nod, and suddenly the talk of nail polish and the new art club disappears, and it becomes talk of executions and murders, masterminds and culprits. Angie finally feels entertained and somewhat comfortable, and she almost always jumps in to add a supporting detail to what someone said. Their voices feel more clear and less distant to her, and their talk of their favorite deaths and masterminds becomes the best conversation she ever had. Angie talks about her stupid crush on the seamstress and they all smile at her and tell her their crushes. She actually laughs when they make jokes about executions, jabs at victims, and it feels like a break. She ignores the fact that they love the death of teenagers, because who doesn’t?

After school, they all file out, waving at each other with smiles. Angie’s doesn’t feel as forced, now that she knows people are in the same boat as she is. When she gets home, her parents aren’t there, but she doesn’t really care at this point. They leave a note on the table, talking about going to a friend’s party and that they won’t be back until late. She almost snorts; she can’t believe that they actually took the time to write the note. She rips it up into shreds and throws it in the trash. Opens up the fridge, and pulls out some of her dad’s alcohol. She settles herself in the living room and flips to a channel that was currently playing reruns of season 52. After all this binge watching, she finally made it to the 52nd season. She found it strange that she didn’t know about Danganronpa before; it was so widely popular, she’d figure that she’d hear the name more often.

A bitter part of her tells her that it’s because she always blocked herself off. Angie blames it on the world around her, and continues watching half of the third trial. She happily waits for the killer to be found, her eyes darting around with excitement as she places her bets on the seamstress. A part of her hopes that the culprit isn’t Amami, but she also wants it to be him, so she can watch him go out with a glory that the viewers can never possess. So, she waits for an hour, and cheers loudly when the seamstress if found out to be the culprit. Angie adores the cold and calm look in the girl’s eyes as they all question her, only getting a cold turn of the cheek in response. She stays silent the whole time, even as she is probed for information. Angie adores this lady, she loves her and her character, and feels herself melt when the girl ignores all of her classmates, her posture perfect. 

Angie feels the excitement burn her up as the seamstress is hauled away to her execution, needles upon needles stabbing into her. She watches as her guts are pulled out of her, and the needle plunges into her skin. The Monokuma above the seamstress sews the now gutless girl back together, a perfect stitch. Angie almost feels like it was more suited for a stuffed animal maker or whatever, but she feels satisfied none the less. She stretches out and starts smiling at all of their horrified expressions, all of the students’ eyes glued onto the monitor. Even Amami’s eyes were wide with horror, glazed with disgust. His fists were clenched, and Angie almost melts when he looks like that. 

And she spends her evening like that, her mind still focused on the execution with needles and blood. 

The next morning, she wakes up, the fresh memory of the seamstress’ death still embedded into her mind. She gets ready, sprays water on her face, and changes with her heart lifted. She’s so excited to for school to end, so she can go home and drown in Danganronpa. Angie had finished the fourth trial; which was always a tear jerker. This one was too, with the chemist crying and telling everyone he was sorry, his tears causing a chain reaction, and soon everyone had tears rushing down their cheeks, hands shaky and heads low. Amami had even looked away, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists again. He looked distraught, full of the worst sort of despair.

Angie had loved it. She hadn’t meant to act like Enoshima (who, she actually didn’t care for at all), but seeing one of her favorite characters suffer with a despair that even she couldn’t fathom, it made her feel happy, excited, and other sorts of joyous emotions. She had clasped her hands together and her eyes had eaten up the scene as she jiggled her leg in anticipation. She remembers the chemist’s execution, his screams as his skin was boiled and burnt, the way he begged for help as his skin melted off near the end. It was one of the more extreme ones, but it didn’t top the seamstress’s. Still, she had watched as everybody buried their palms into their eyes, looking away and shaking. She loved Amami’s speech about finding the mastermind, his eyes blazing with fury. 

She knew it was futile, though.  
They hadn’t even made it to the fifth trial yet. 

After another boring day of school (and a exciting talk of her favorite TV show) Angie goes home, and finds herself sitting in front of the television again, waiting for Danganronpa. She stretches out, and flips to the channel of her dreams. Wiggling her fingers and yawning loudly, she hugged a pillow and rested her head, excitement burning through her. The fifth trial, as always, was the most complex one. There was many twists and turns as they struggled to figure out the mysterious death of the hair stylist. Angie had to admit, she was pretty confused on how someone could end someone’s life so brutally. She listened to everything the characters argued about, their confusion just the same as hers. After a while of bickering, the spy reveals that he saw the twin tailed hair stylist take the scissors herself. While people backed him into a corner, he counters that it wouldn’t have been suspicious, because she always worked with scissors, so he figured it was unimportant.

Amami, once again, brought the trial to peace, thinking logically. He points out so many facts that they missed, his voice clear. However, even he is met with a dead end. All hell breaks loose again, and now they are all panicking, because Monokuma was impatient and waiting for his voting time. They scrambled and threw evidence and accusations back and forth, fear in their eyes. However, silence rushes over them when the huntress purposes the idea of suicide. They all think this over, and suddenly everything seems to fit now, evidence is seen form a new point of view, and they all seem to understand the greater picture. 

When the truth is exposed to be a suicide, everybody grimaces. Amami openly stated how much pain she must have been in, and wondered if she really hated them all that much. The spy says that maybe she didn’t, because she was always extra, so she went out in an extra way. They all seem to be perplexed and disturbed, and the episode ends there, with all five of them confused and disturbed. Angie is still left staring at the screen, shock written all over her face. She didn’t know how much pain the girl must have been in, but she must have been almost crying from the agony. Somehow, it almost makes her sick. Self-inflicted pain, and that gruesome. Angie feels her fingers shake slightly, and she shuts the TV off, the mangled and cut up body of the dead hairstylist branded into her mind.

Angie wakes up, and wonders why the corpse of a dead girl is stuck in her mind. She hadn’t seen that bad, not even in Danganronpa. The only way to recognize the girl was her long twin tails, but even those were splattered with the almost comical pink blood. It’s a Saturday, so she can marathon this season and finish it. The auditions for Danganronpa 53 are next week, and she didn’t even make up her mind yet. She pushes that thought away and finds herself, yet again, in front of the TV. She turns the show on, and gets ready. 

The mastermind is revealed to be the dead hair sylist, who had actually swapped places with the huntress somewhere along the line. Before death, the huntress and her switched places, and the huntress was actually the dead one. Angie was shocked, in all honesty. It almost made the case easier to digest, knowing a person didn’t do that to them self. But, then again, having someone kill you like that and consenting to it, was it basically the same thing as suicide? She ignores that train of thought and leans in close to the TV, and watches as the mastermind proposes deal after deal, her twin tails whipping around behind her. She grins, slamming her hands against the podium and proposing a final deal that they all agree to.  
Sacrifice, huh? 

Amami agrees, almost immediately, to become the next survivor in the next game. Angie grins at this; if she got in, she could meet him, even if she didn’t remember him. The other four stare at him, and the spy agrees to be executed with the mastermind, his face dull and drained. The others beg and fight, but eventually, it all comes to a close. Amami smiles at all of them, and says that he’s happy that at least they will be free of this game. The spy has no reaction, he only chuckles a bit as they all beg for him not to do this. He just shrugs, and says as long as the game ends. They all are crying, and the evil lady behind it all just cackles like it’s fun, like it’s the best thing. 

Angie couldn’t agree more. So she watches as the spy and the mastermind are pulled into their execution. She looks away, but she does her screams and laughter and the sound of scissors and guns. She looks back, and sees the spy and the mastermind’s bodies, cut up and full of bullets. She didn’t get how it suited their talents, but she hadn’t watched. Angie turns the TV off, because she didn’t care for some stupid speech. She just sat there, and decided to go to auditions next week. She didn’t really like the end; it felt rushed and cheap, but somehow, it satisfied her anyway.

School flies by until the day of auditions, so Angie straightens out her school uniform and takes the bus to the place. When she enters Team Danganronpa’s building, she sees so many teenagers it almost discourages her. But she swallows down her anxiety and takes her number from a plain lady with long blue hair and somewhat excited eyes. She finds a seat and sits there, scowling and digging her nails into her thighs. So many people’s voices ring in her ears, and she felt so fucking tired of filled with nerves that she just wanted everyone to drop dead, so she could step over their corpses and audition. True, there would be no one to be in the game with, but people watching her slowly go insane on camera would be fine, too. She looks at the floor and almost convinces herself she’s the only person alive, when suddenly someone sits next to her and speaks.

“So, you look just as done with this as I fucking am.” They say, and she looks over her shoulder and sees a boy with dark hair and gray eyes, his skin sickly pale and a hat placed on his head. “Well yeah, what gave that away?” She says back, and doesn’t even attempt to be friendly like she always does. There was no one to impress; they were all fucked up, there was no hiding it. The boy snorts, “Maybe the scowl on your face. Imma be nice- really brings out your eyes,” he jokes, and she snorts. “What? You mean these dead pieces of glass?” Angie points at her eyes as an example, and he laughs. It doesn’t sound happy, just hollow. “So, why are you here?” He asks, and she rolls her eyes. “Such a charmer. Anyway, I’m here because I want to watch the world and the people around me fucking burn. It’s done so much to me, that I don’t even care who dies, even if I do.” 

She remembers being sick about the hair stylist’s - actually, the huntress’s death - and realizes how hypocritical that was. Here she was, basically digging her own grave. Angie waits for his response. He nods, with a weird look in his eyes. “I get that. I’m here because I want to die, or see people die, you know? I’m basically in the same boat as you. Though, I’m really hoping I get executed. Even if they erase my personality, I want to go down raising hell! I also have thought up tons of executions for the Ultimate Detective, which I hope is the talent I receive. But, no matter what talent I get, I don’t care! As long as I’m in Danganronpa, I’m happy and fine! As long as-“ 

Angie silences him by hissing softly, “We’re in public.” He blinks, and he suddenly looks away. “S-Sorry. I.. actually. Nevermind. You pretty much get it.” She nods at his statement, studying her nails. “I do.” Her gaze travels to a girl with twin tails - she figures that she styled them in honor of the last mastermind - a guy with so much hair gel she could smell the chemicals from here, and a short looking boy with flyaway purple hair. The short boy was tugging on the girl’s arm, blabbering about something. His gaze meets Angie’s, and a perplexed but somehow smug - for no reason - expression reaches his face. He gives her a wave, and she looks away and back to the boy next to her.

“Name?” She suddenly asks, and he looks at her, almost hostile when he speaks. “Just call me Saihara,” She nods. “I’m Angie. Don’t use my last name, it makes me want to fucking die.” Saihara laughs, “Save that for the auditions, edge queen.” She snorts back, “Says the one who went on a rant about death.” 

They banter for a bit, but it feels unhealthy. The topics they joke about are dark and serious, and they end up discussing their wish to die and sink into the abyss. 

When Saihara’s number is called, she yells at him just as he goes: “Don’t astral project, or ascend into another universe!” And he looks about ready to die of laughter, but he holds it in and stumbles over to the audition room. Angie watches a tall and mature young lady converse with a small girl with red hair. She eventually comes face to face with the boy with purple hair, his eyes boring into hers. 

“Sooo.... why were you staring? Jealous? I know, I know, all the ladies want me.”  
Angie laughs at him. “You sound so full of yourself, you should know that.”  
“Oh don’t worry, I know that. I do it to sound confident, when I actually feel like dashing out of here and getting hit by a car.”  
She grins, “Well, we’re going to get along just fine then. Why are you here?”  
“That’s classified. Why are you here?”  
“Long story short, I want to watch everyone burn for what they’ve done to me.”

He seems to try and comprehend this, and then he sits next to her, looking at his nails. “Come from a rough household, or something?” She nods, and digs her nails deeper into her skin. “My mom loves heroin and my dad is always drunk. They made me into this mess of a human being, so now I want the world to burn for it. It wasn’t even just them; all my classmates, forcing me to become their beacon of sunshine. So I don’t fucking care, anymore. Death is a better solution, but I want people to remember me. If people forget me, I don’t know what the fuck will happen to me. I’m not my own person, I’m made of pieces of everyone else.” Angie breathes out all those words, her hands shaky and her shoulders aching. Her heart is beating at a million miles an hour, and she wonders if he’ll make fun of her. 

“Well?” She says, waiting for him to laugh in her face. 

He then replies with, “That must fucking suck. I get that. I understand why you’re here. It makes my reason sound so pathetic and petty. I feel like you deserve to be in Danganronpa 53.”  
Angie almost laughs, “I didn’t know you were nice.” He almost looks offended, but instead he shoots back, “I’m usually not nice at all, but when someone hits you with that... you can’t really be mean, because how can you, you know?” 

She nods. “Sorry. Totally dampened the mood. We were all joking, and then suddenly it became Law And Order.”

The stranger snorts at her comment, “Well, Law And Order will basically become our lives once we get in!” He teases, and swings his legs back and forth.

“True, honestly. So hey, if we get in, if you murder someone, murder me. That’s all I can ask for. You might not even remember, but I hope some part of you does.” Angie purposes as she focuses her gaze back on the ground again, her mouth moving on her own. “Or if you don’t, take credit for it. Tell people you did it, even if they’ll figure it out.” 

Before he can respond, the people call his number and he stands, brushing off his pants. “I can’t promise you the first one, but I can probably do the second~” he sings. “Also, before I go- my name’s Ouma. No first name, we aren’t close at all!” Angie rolls her eyes, and says flatly, “My name’s Angie. Don’t use my last name.”

And he leaves, to go audition for the thing that will kill him.

After a while, her number is called. Angie stands and makes her way over to the doors. She breathes as she gets in front of them, and pushes them open, her eyes landing on the plain woman she saw a while ago. 

And with a swish of her skirt, she doesn’t smile for once. Instead, she keeps her lips in a straight line, her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t pretending, she wasn’t forcing a sunshine act. This was her, and she’ll be damned if she is forced into the bright girl everyone sees her as. 

Angie keeps her lips in a line, because she fears that being so (fake) sweet has rotted her teeth and turned them into an ugly black.

**Author's Note:**

> HI I SAW COSMICPOET’S PRE-GAME FIC ‘HEAVEN’S GATE’ AND NEEDED TO TRY MY HAND AT PRE-GAME PERSONALITIES
> 
> so i went with angie because why not  
> i hope this serves her justice because the last fic i made  
> shakes head  
> why


End file.
